Golf’s fraternal spirit has been on show as the storm-ravaged Trentham Golf Club in central Victoria nears the climax of its necessary rebuild.

The club has welcomed superintendents and their staff with copious machinery arriving from the big, famous Melbourne sandbelt clubs, and one Portland Golf Club worker who drove four hours to help out, in recent weeks as the clean-up operations nears its completion.

Devastated by the storm in June, with at least 75 big Eucalypts being blown over and many more badly damaged, Trentham expects to reopen in a couple of weeks’ time.

That’s at least partly because the club’s city cousins have come to their aid led by Metropolitan Golf Club’s superintendent David Mason and helped by the Victorian superintendents’ association. Portsea Golf Club also was involved as well as Peninsula Kingswood and other sandbelt clubs.

“It was a mess,” said Geoff Durham, Trentham’s greens chairman. “We couldn’t do much initially. The power was off for five days and the town was preoccupied in doing their own thing.

“We all got in with working bees, took a lot of wood away, and then David Mason rang and said ‘some of the boys from the sandbelt clubs would like to come up’.

“We had about 11 the first day and eight the second day, they arrived about 8.30 with two in a car and four chainsaws, and away they went. Bingo! Things were cleaned up."

Mason believes in the oneness of golf; last year when Metro stripped its greens, half a dozen country clubs came and picked up chunks of the bent grass. “I think that’s important,” said Mason. “I’ve got a real heart for the country clubs and the small clubs that are feeling the pinch. Why not help them as much as we can? Especially the large private clubs that have afford to do it.”

As for Trentham, they are having the damage assessed for insurance. But within a few weeks, they will be back playing again.

“We’re almost to the point where we can say the course is every bit as safe as it was before the storm,” said Durham. “We were tickled pink with it.”